


Interlude to a New Dream

by onnari



Series: there's a place [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Almyra (Fire Emblem), Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, Golden route, Wyverns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:29:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26665978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onnari/pseuds/onnari
Summary: After years of service to Adrestia, reshaping Fódlan alongside her peers, Edelgard leaves the role of emperor behind and begins to make a new life for herself with Khalid.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Claude von Riegan
Series: there's a place [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189541
Kudos: 64





	Interlude to a New Dream

**Author's Note:**

> In the midst of working to properly get these two together in another fic, I am choosing to indulge in some older and established relationship nonsense.
> 
> \--
> 
> UPDATE? This accidentally became a part of its own sort of series, ahaha

The bed is still warm where Khalid has been when Edelgard stirs, but there is no trace left of him otherwise. She squints into the dim light of dawn breaking and realizes she’s overslept again, pattering into the next room where Khalid is finishing up his early meditation.

“I asked you to wake me,” she chides sleepily in Almyran at the first opportunity. These days, it is the language they mostly speak in, her proficiency steadily growing.

“And I told you the first test is waking yourself up,” he teases. “ You don’t even have to meditate. Sleep in if you want to.”

She has her doubts she’ll be very successful in keeping her thoughts from creeping back in or even from nodding off mid meditation. She also does not know if she’ll be able to connect with the spiritual element of the practice, but still, she is here to expand her horizons, not limit them.

“I want to at least try,” she says. “You and everyone else always make it sound so beneficial.”

Khalid touches her shoulder, his smile kind. “Trust me, just going through the motions won’t achieve much, and I won’t make a good teacher, either. I’ve just found what works for me. Let’s get you to someone who can introduce you properly.”

“That is sensible,” she grants. “Let’s do that.”

He presses a kiss to her temple, continuing with his morning routine in the rooms that are ostensibly hers. In truth they belong to both of them, many of Khalid’s possessions already moved from his rooms.

Across the space she watches him, obvious and unashamed, having her fill of him while she has him here with her. He gets distracted, shirt half on, half off, as he chatters about the day to come, who he is meeting and how he plans to best or work with them, but he pauses when he catches her staring. He laughs, righting his clothes, even winks at her over his shoulder as he adjusts his sash around his waist.

Finally her silence stretches too long. “What are you thinking?” he asks as he is liable to do at any moment of quiet between them, eager for her own thoughts or opinion.

“I am thinking... how fortunate it is that I am here with you.”

He pauses in slipping his earrings on, sobering.

“It does feel like a dream.” And indeed they had dreamt up this part of their future just for themselves, even amidst larger ambitions of ridding Fódlan of the forces that worked against it and reforming its political systems. “I am grateful you decided to come.”

“I must have done at least something right,” she says, quiet and wondering, “to end up here with you.”

“You’ve done good, and you will do more,” he says as he always does, and it’s exactly those words—that faith in her when he’s seen her at her worst—that makes her want to go out and make good on that belief. His goodness that speaks to her own.

“You only need others to make sure you don’t lose your path,” he continues. “I’m not so different, either. If I stand alone, I’m nothing.”

She crosses to him, wrapping him in her arms to remind him: “But you do not. You have others, and you have me. Just keep letting us in.”

They linger for as long as they can—longer even—Khalid returning her embrace and her kisses that she presses against his mouth and face, but eventually they loosen their hold. Each to see to their day. She remains near as he finishes with his earrings, and when he turns to other jewelry, she holds a ring out to him, a beautiful emerald banded in gold.

“This one matches your eyes.”

He smiles, a little mischievous. “You keep that one then.” He holds up another, sliding it on. “This one matches yours.”

Her hand is bare, as she keeps it these days, angry scars and all, and the emerald ring fits secure enough across her thumb. Throughout the day, she finds herself glancing back at it.

* * *

By large, they do not spend the majority of their daylight hours together. She settles for passing him on opposite sides of a room or a quick meeting in the courtyard garden. Her favorite stolen moment is when she catches him passionately arguing with one of the viziers he plans on removing, even more so when she can flash him her admiring look. She lingers then to see how much she can affect him, even across a room, before he must move on.

But his absence does not mean she is alone or lonely.

Khalid has no end of family and there is no shortage of social invitations that come her way, whether they be drinking parties, performances, or boisterous competitions—the latter a means to fill the void that putting a halt to border skirmishes has left.

Khalid’s parents, since retired from greater public life, also invite her to a number of private entertainments and outings, and Edelgard, after a lifetime of avoidance, has to navigate more than the basics of horsemanship, galloping after their hunting party. She suspects she only does not make a fool of herself owing to the tamest and sweetest possible mare that they offer her to ride.

Certainly, she contributes little to the day’s spoils, their weapons bows, javelins, and swords, none of which Edelgard is especially accomplished in, let alone on horseback. They forgo the faster quarry, likely out of courtesy to her and the speed and teamwork it requires. Instead, Khalid’s mother treats them to a show, knocking down all manners of beasts from leopards to boars to bears on each occasion they ride out together.

On their first hunt, Tiana pulls Edelgard aside as they turn back for the palace, swiping at the specks of blood across her cheek.

“If you have any troubles, come to me,” she says, succinct and sharp and so different from the way Khalid speaks. “Adjusting or otherwise. I can take care of them. I am at my leisure these days.”

Edelgard nods, taken aback by the nature of the offer after the reservation Tiana had shown during their first introductions.

“Good,” Tiana says, then, “You’re picking up the language well. Better than I did.”

“I did not have more than an introduction as a child, but Khalid has been helping me with it for some time now.”

“That will serve well in finding your place here. Khalid, too, needs someone who can keep pace with him and his overlong speeches.” She smiles, and even that is something fierce. “Even make him swallow his own words from time to time.”

Khalid’s father, Kavad, having ridden close enough to overhear, shakes his head in laughter. Offers up his own particular observation and amusement.

“I bring home a noble woman of a powerful family, and my child brings home a former emperor.” This he repeats to himself in some form or other on the ride back, and Edelgard expects him to tire of it each time he says it, but even Tiana, surprisingly, is entertained.

Edelgard’s former title is no secret, unlike how Tiana has obscured her own, allowing herself to vanish from Leicester affairs. Edelgard does not see much point in pretending she is anyone other than who she is. Her past has shaped her irrevocably and continues to shape her present and future. Nor can she let go of Adrestia and Fódlan entirely. She has put her ideals to the test, believing in the strength of people to govern themselves, but she follows events there closely still, mindful of any sign that her careful work might be unraveling.

It’s in terms of leadership that Kavad speaks to her as they lead their horses back to the stables.

“I stepped aside because I could see it was Khalid’s time. That he was more than ready to assume responsibility and carry Almyra forward. How could I not think so, seeing all he’s accomplished in Fódlan?”

“Yes,” Edelgard says, unable to keep her fondness from her voice. “Khalid has accomplished much, and he will accomplish far more.”

His father grins at her to hear her tone. “I thought him foolhardy to go, but it seems that it was I who was in the wrong there. I would be the actual fool though if I didn’t recognize you were also a part of all he’s done.” She nearly halts, but works to resume her pace, a former emperor walking abreast a former king.

“Thank you,” she manages. “He is a source of strength to me, as I hope I am to him.”

There is his look of amusement again, staring down at her, but he makes a point to smooth his features before telling her, “I know Khalid’s already made it clear that you—that anyone—is welcome in Almyra, but let me say it anyway. It is good to have you here as Khalid’s partner.”

“Yes,” Tiana says bluntly, rejoining them. “Your riding and hunting skills can always come later.” Edelgard’s laugh startles her, caught off guard at the unexpected but clear indication that there is a place for her here.

* * *

Of the many other social invitations that make their way to her, Edelgard knows which to decline or only to accept in the company of others. When they’d begun to discuss her coming to join him in Almyra, the first thing Khalid had done was finally discuss his precarious political situation in greater detail. Everyone who has not been his greatest admirer.

He’d hoped her coming to Almyra without taking up work in any official capacity would keep her from being targeted herself, but it is not as though Edelgard wants to spare even a second of her time on those who wish Khalid harm.

Some, however, cannot be avoided entirely, including Khalid’s great uncle, Vistahm—a source of endless disagreement between them.

“Do not ask me to make nice with a man behind not one but two of the attempted assassinations on your life. I’d sooner not attend,” she says, her every word more enunciated in her anger.

A pause though makes her think better of the declaration. “If I could stand the thought of leaving you in his company.”

“And that is why we will be keeping our distance at this or any future feast.” When he sees her making to object he adds, “But we will stand our ground.”

“Good. If you control the room, that will limit Vistahm’s movements. If he still oversteps, I cannot guarantee he will not leave the night unharmed.”

Khalid turns thoughtful, in spite of himself. “And how exactly do you plan on doing that without chaos breaking out, a whole audience looking on?”

Her lip curls. “I can make it look like an accident. Do you think I don’t know how to fashion a proper poison after keeping company with you for all these years? We can call it an unfortunate event due to—how do you like to put it? Overindulgence.”

He laughs outright. “I have been a terrible influence on you,” he says, but he has not, and he knows it.

“We will oust him,” he says, serious again. “Diminish his power by winning over his supporters to the point where he wishes he’d never caused a rift in our family in the first place.”

It is not really her own battle to fight and to win, but her chest still warms to hear him refer to them as a team still. The two of them, a given, even as Edelgard finds her new path, far from her homeland.

* * *

It’s her correspondence that Edelgard turns to when she seeks old friends and what she’s left behind. She starts with more official correspondence, sending missives to Leicester contacts in spite of knowing Khalid will surely do the same. Continues on to Dimitri, straightforward and cordial to her brother in name, a reliable and earnest source of information when it comes to the affairs he manages in Faerghus.

The rest of her letters journey far and wide, to Dorothea and Petra in independent Brigid to Byleth’s band of mercenaries to Caspar and Linhardt on their adventures to wherever the couriers finally track Bernadetta down as she travels the length of Fódlan. Edelgard hopes to invite her in particular to Almyra as a new destination for her to see and explore.

Her letters also travel to her old home of Enbarr, writing Ferdinand and Hubert in one letter. She likes to imagine them reading it over together as they have their tea and coffee before starting their day, surely preparing for the upcoming summit with the rest of Fódlan. This year it will not be her but a council, newly elected, that will represent Adrestia.

Still, she can almost see herself there with them, seated at their usual garden table, from all the years they’ve worked so closely together. She values their intelligence on Adrestia as much as she does Ferdinand’s ready criticism of the system she’s put in place. Even as a former emperor, there are not many who directly make their opinions known to her when they contradict her own. His last letter, however, has criticism of a different variety, disagreeing on the steps and overall approach she’s taking to further her riding skills, and she files it away, smiling.

With the letter she dutifully includes a translated logic puzzle that Khalid had snickered to himself all through writing out, obviously hoping to vex Hubert and bewilder Ferdinand in turn. A story involving sheep, camel, a poor merchant, and an avaricious lord, all of which Edelgard had merely crossed through in the original Almyran and doodled the lord being held accountable for his crimes.

Khalid also tries to tack on his teasing in her letters to Lysithea, but she denies him that indulgence. She has her own fond and overbearing affections to pen, consistently asking after Lysithea’s own recovery from the harm done to them, and it is not as though he will not write his own rambling letter to her the week after Edelgard does, irreverent and playful. Lysithea writes them back in a letter addressed to them both and far more to the point. Usually imploring them to please reign themselves in a little, a request they both always pointedly ignore.

* * *

The work she devotes herself to more than anything is her studies and a greater understanding of her new home. Most obviously her advanced studies in Almyran, but also the history of the land. She has no want of tutors, of course, but for the latter subject she often chooses to sit in on public classes, the students an array of ages.

Some are the poor from across Almyra, others travelers and immigrants. Edelgard is hardly the only foreigner at court, Khalid entreating artists and scholars the world over to live in residence across the capital, providing open lectures, demonstrations, and performances. There is an entire contingent from Fódlan quartered at the edge of the palace, the most work needed to be done there to repair relations.

The majority of the students that make up the classes Edelgard sits in on though are orphans of unneeded border skirmishes and sport. Khalid has invited them into the capital as well, providing them with schooling and placements in various trades. A chance at a future even with a past and family lost, and she feels a kind of kindred connection with them in that way. A couple she has even taken tea with, sampling old and local brews infused with cardamom and rose petals.

Khalid associates with the group as a whole, already sponsoring three in court on his own, but his clear, unspoken favorite is the youngest and most precocious, a ten year old named Sura. They are thick as thieves, proven in fact by how Sura loves to sneak around and filch things from under Khalid’s nose and anticipate him finally discovering the act of thievery.

To Edelgard she often goes for insider help, and Edelgard cannot deny her the advantage in their ongoing series of antics. Sura’s latest lark is to take Khalid’s favorite quill and replace it with an ensorcelled one that splatters ink in all directions. Sura could not contain her laughter, scampering from the room, and Edelgard makes no attempt to suppress her own quiet chuckles, both in anticipation and when the disaster actually unfolds.

* * *

Things are never truly quiet in her room, even without Khalid, owing to her most erstwhile but unexpected companion. It begins with Khalid’s moonbright wyvern, Maha, taking to visiting her room, growling or kicking up a breeze from outside the window, sending Edelgard chasing after a cloud of loose leaf paper each time she comes by.

“She knows I stay here now,” Khalid explains. “But I visit her enough outside. I think she’s checking up on you.”

“Or assessing,” she replies, dubious, but Khalid will have none of it, treating Maha for the attention against Edelgard’s better judgment.

To be the object of a wyvern’s interest is a foreign, surreal thing, but Edelgard tries to thank the beast for the attention as it perches outside, sticking its head in to look about at her. When Maha licks the length of Edelgard’s body or snorts at her, Edelgard tries not to flinch, and finally her forbearance in enduring the wyvern’s scrutiny for weeks on end is rewarded by Maha reappearing with a hatchling dangling from her maw. She drops the runt at Edelgard’s feet and he looks up at her like a perfect terror.

“Do I have to be responsible for this wyvern now?” Edelgard asks at wit’s end when Khalid finally returns and sees her covered in slobber. She can only assume—and dearly hope—the cause is a fleeting teething phase.

Khalid is speechless, laughing for close to a full minute, until the young wyvern decides to attack the late night dinner he’s brought back with him, snatching it up before he can intercede. He laughs again, only more hopelessly, in a way that more accurately reflects Edelgard’s frame of mind, and she joins in.

But there is something to be said for the wyvern’s frequent and devoted companionship, always flitting over, with or without his mother, knocking into walls on its unsteady wings and then roosting on her shoulder. If he gnaws on her ear or hair from time to time, she somehow begins to take it in stride as a doting gesture.

Qottab, she finally names him, after her favorite sweet he’s always swiping from her, his brown and white speckled coat not so dissimilar from its sugar dusted dough,

Khalid shakes his head at her, but his grin betrays him. “Only you would name a wyvern after a pastry. You do know he’s going to tower over you, right?”

“And then it will be cute _and_ ironic,” she defends, watching the wyvern hiss when he means to growl.

The reality of Qottab’s constant presence manifests in making the room even more of a mess than Khalid often leaves it. Edelgard attacks the chaos with a certain zealousness, needing a touch more order and control in her day, reorganizing the room’s books and papers and their joint desks. The paired sight of them still makes her feel confident and capable all on its own. Reminds her of when they’d sat at the same end of a war conference or summit council and what they’d wrought together.

Khalid catches her still at work rearranging clutter when he comes in, sitting down at his own desk and helping her shift things.

“Oh that’s where this went,” he says, turning up an annotated sketch of a map, grateful but sheepish. “Honestly, I thought Qottab might have eaten it.”

“Blaming a wyvern for your own faults.” She does not fight her teasing smile. “Shameful. You’d best apologize.”

It is not much of a demand when Qottab is resting peacefully for once upon the window sill. Khalid merely musses his hair, staring intently at the recovered document. “There’s just too many thoughts circling round in my head to keep track of everything at once.”

“So share some.” She moves to stand behind him. “Tell me about this map.”

“Recognize it?” he says, tilting the paper towards her, and she’s momentarily distracted by the light ametrine ring he’s wearing again. She thumbs at the band, affectionate. Twines their fingers together as she leans over his shoulder to get a closer look at what he holds up. Realizes it’s Fodlan’s Throat from Almyra’s side of the border.

“This is just as I told you how things stood a month or so ago. Old Almyran garrisons diminished and pulled back.” He points. “Here and here.”

“Redirecting them to help with the harvest and rebuild roads as you keep thinning their numbers, yes, I remember.”

“We have enough contacts in Leicester to know there is no pending threat or attack from their side to worry about.”

But she can tell there is a problem from just the tone of his voice. “Then the Almyran,” she surmises. “Since when?”

She can feel his weary chuckle travel through him, and she thinks of the days he works until he falls asleep at this desk, Edelgard often carrying him to bed.

“Who knows exactly, but today I’ve heard some reports that would explain those notable recent expenditures from my great uncle’s household.” His voice turns to rarer anger. “Of course he would like nothing more than to fly in the face of all the work I’ve done and stir up old conflict.”

He reaches for a quill to better illustrate the movement of favors, weapons, and people closer to the border, but she stays his hand.

“Sura,” she reminds him quietly, and he shakes his head to clear it, reaching for another quill to mark up his map.

By the time he’s done talking, the paper is full to bursting with words and cross outs and arrows and he leans into her, sighing.

“You’ve managed a map like this before,” she reassures.

His arm wraps around her waist, bringing her closer. “It was easier when I had a partner controlling the other half of it.”

“But now you have me at your side instead. When will you go? I can join you.”

“I’d rather neither of us when there is work for the common good to be done here. But if Nader cannot handle the situation, and perhaps my mother, I might have to. Your decision is your own.”

It is not a decision she would take lightly, and it speaks to the larger question of her role in Almyra. She has no desire to take up any noble title here after rescinding her own in Adrestia, dissolving the nobility and leaving her country in the hands of the people at large. As long as she is at Khalid’s side she will push him to consider how to take similar steps, sooner rather than later, but she recognizes it cannot be instantaneous.

What her exact place should now be, she does not know. But she wants to belong, here in Khalid’s idealized vision of what could be. In the better world they hope to leave behind.

“I love you,” she says, because at least that is certain and always a place to start from.

He turns around, embracing her properly. “I love you, too,” he says, and it’s promise enough. She holds his head to her chest, winding her hand into his hair and tousling it further. Against her skin he murmurs, “Now tell me about your day.”

So she does, coming finally to her studies. “We covered poetry, the same as the past few weeks. And if you can believe it, more poetry to come. I can still hardly believe even your scholarly texts contain verse.”

“Just wait until you get to the classics,” he says, voice catching in that way means he’s landed on one of his many topics of interest. “They’re rich narratives, contemplating the existential questions of life through story. And funny, too.”

It is not hard to indulge him, his earnest fascination for things often spurring her own curiosity. “Read one to me then.”

He leaves to retrieve something from his library, which gives her time to collect her art supplies at her leisure and settle into bed. When Khalid returns and joins her, Qottab is quick to follow suit, tumbling over to curl up at their feet. As Khalid pages through his book and begins to read, Edelgard leans back to draw the sight of all three of them in the mirror.

There’s a rhythm to Khalid’s voice from the verse he speaks, disrupted when he pauses to parse the poetry in Old Almyran into something more comprehensible. She interrupts him freely in turn, knowing he delights in the commentary. It’s a story of wandering and purpose and though the tale is a little surreal, it is also very human, and she can see why he chose it for her.

As always, the underlying spirituality is lost on her but the way it posits love as something transcendent—as an answer in its own right—that she can understand and feel. How could she not, here with the person she loves? When love in its different forms has given her strength to find herself and even change the world?

She blinks away the few tears that catch her in her eyelashes as Khalid closes his book, leaning over to examine her work. “Hmm, it’s good.”

“Just good?” she says drolly, mouth curling upwards. She finally dislodges Qottab, shaking the feeling back into her feet, and waits for him to elaborate. His opinion is an honest one and usually with reasoning behind it.

“I could do a far better one,” he responds, even though he could not; he is a terrible artist. “Just for taking more care when it comes to you. You neglected to capture all your own beauty.”

He is not wrong exactly, her figure sketched out much more quickly. “Well, can I be blamed when there was already so much on offer?”

“Blamed? No. I’m just selfishly disappointed.” He settles back, studying her profile. “I guess I’ll have to memorize you all over again instead.”

But she’s already working to correct the oversight. Fills out her expression, focused yet amused. Does not hesitate to add her constellation of scars as they appear in the mirror, Edelgard’s sleep shirt hanging loose off her shoulder. She cannot see them as beauty exactly, but she believes that he can. He sees it in most places.

She offers the drawing to him anew. “Satisfied?”

“Very. I think I’ll be taking this one.” So he says, but he knows better by now than to do so without her approval, and he looks to her, beseechingly.

“Granted,” she says with only a trace of embarrassment and leans over to kiss him on the mouth. He pulls her in, hand cupping the back of her head, the other tucking a brown strand of hair out of her face and behind her ear. She’s smiling again when she pulls away, leaning her head against his shoulder as she smothers a yawn.

“I’m looking forward to finally touring the eastern provinces and having a chance to draw their landscapes,” she says in Adrestian, reverting to her native tongue in exhaustion.

“Even with the long flight?” he says, matching her.

She makes a face, and he laughs. “At least that will be offset by all the views to be taken in from the air.”

“Well at least there is that.” He nudges her, nodding at Qottab with his chin. “Soon you’ll even be able to train and ride your very own wyvern.”

Again, her face communicates her feelings on the matter. “One thing at a time,” she mumbles, yawning again. “I still have my horsemanship to see to.”

“Go to sleep, El,” Khalid coaxes, yawning himself. “Maybe then you’ll have a real chance to wake up with me in the morning and put into practice what you’ve been learning.”

“I will,” she replies, even eager for the early hour. For tomorrow and all the ones to follow, each a fresh start. An opportunity for a new dream and to make something of the life that still stretches out before her.

Khalid slides down, turns, and she shifts behind him, wrapping her arms around him. An embrace he’s growing into. Edelgard has left behind her own palace, full of her worst memories and associations, but this place still holds spectres Khalid has to face. She will hold him close and watch his back, in the meantime.


End file.
